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| INTERNET EXPLOSION |
| If you are reading this article then youl be aware of the explosion of "cyber warrior" hooligan websites, but where did it all start? This is a quick look back on how it all began. There had always been a few football fan wesbites on the net which would contain the odd threat, but come the end of 1998 to co inside with the release of his book, Paul Dodd launched his own website. www.pauldodd.com. Apart from the numerous porn adverts on the site, the message board was the only part of the site anyone paid attention to. The first time i logged onto the site i must admit to actually believing the posts annoucning things like "liverpool are meeting huddersfield at the crown pub at 6, get down there" ! After a few visits i noticed a few of the soon to be famed "keyboard warriors", anyone who used the old dodd site will probably remeber the likes of, tigerman, raoary the tiger and knuckles, funny as they were it was all total bollox posted. |
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| The Cardiff-Millwall game made the dodd site famous as it appeared on sky news and in numerous papers, with the media claiming the trouble had ALL been arranged though the site. Around the same time came In The Know, unlike now it was a website with a few pictures and 2 messageboards, and even from the beginning was seen as the REAL hooligans site, que whats the adress for ITK posts all over! There were a few other very poor hooligan sites about, though the football fans website and veiw from the terrace were excellent sites covering games from all over europe. The first club website i can remember was Cardiff Soul Crew, then on astroatlas not geocities. again getting the adress as with ITK was a bit of a task lol! This site Casual Culture was started a few months before euro 2000 and was still one of few on the internet. Birmingham Zulu Army was amongst the first other firms to have an internet presance. Football Hooligan.net also had a video section, which led to almost hysteria amongst the now growing internet posters. The problem came with every time high profile trouble happened the police in part blamed organistaion on the internet, and each time they said this another 5 or so sites would appear the next week! |
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| By now, your OB, or this site is watched by OB posts ruled the roost, a few of the faint hearted actually closed there websites fearing the worst. The NCIS game by game hooligan report became the most eagerly awaited thing on the intenet since finding out the soul crew adress, and was a quality glorification of the seasons violence, unfortunatly the police have now realsied this and no longer produce it. The awful "hooligans" video, an its www.stanley.com website contained quite a few video clips from the video making it popular for a time. A few clothes sites popped up like BBclothing and Metropolis clothing, adding another dimension for the casual on the internet. But by the time Paul Dodd became Soccer Hooligan, because dodd was fed up of being mentioned in newspaper artciles about internet arrangement! the orgional fun of the sites had gone. Although SH.com was and still is a very funny decent site (nothing to do with football violence though!) now every club seems to have a site, built on geocities, with an aqua or burberry background, some pictures nicked off other sites and a network 54 messageboard, and of course a "youth" section. The odd good site can still be found and ITK still has the occasional decent report on tottenhma-middlesborough or whoever, but can someone please come up with some origioanlity! a bit like myself writing this tounge in cheek article! |